It can be said that a world like Second Life depends on several key factors; stability and a stable economy are of course key. The Second Life economy will be driven by market factors such as in-world spending, investment in land, and user accounts. New users are a key driving force for Linden Lab and whilst that has received mostly negative feedback from the community about the prioritisation of new members over long standing stability issues, it is clear that new residents are essential to the world’s future. Their ‘new’ money will be the difference that keeps us all in-world or all of us signing up for WoW accounts.

In parallel, it’s an argument by many that real world economies depend, heavily on tourists. A controversial but weighted argument that those lovely happy-snappy photographing tourists that put strain on our transport networks and hold us up on the street when we’re in a hurry are in fact crucial to the area we live and work in. Tourism provides investment and opportunities in areas, and for many parts of the world, that rely heavily on it. Of course this is not everyone’s opinion, many believe the weight of tourists on an area change it and create social and cultural damage in some of the worst cases.

As someone who works in the tourism industry in the real world in a popular tourist destination called Scotland, it’s pretty easy to see which side of the fence I will sit on when it comes to the ‘to tourist, or not to tourist’ debate.

I personally believe there are correlations between the need for tourists and the need for new residents. Allow me, if you will to explain. Tourists arrive in your home town/city with their freshly exchanged currencies, eager and willing to spend this leisure time, and their budget in the shops and stores in the area. This tourist ‘dollar’ helps to fund more jobs, brand growth, training, development, new concepts, and new outlets and of course pay your councils/ governments more taxes. Residents arrive into Second Life, with big eyes preparing to take it all in. Over time, perhaps, even spending money, developing skills, growing a brand, increasing productivity and opening their own store.

It is with this thought in my mind; I feel I must ponder why more RL tourist organisations aren’t open and accessible to Second Life. Oh of course don’t mistake me, some are here, notably Dublin in SL but where are the rest? Since it’s generally thought that holidays are no longer a luxury, but in actual fact a necessity wouldn’t it be wise for these tourist destinations around the globe to ‘sell’ themselves to you their potential tourists?

I think the answer lies in one of two reasons; budgets and bureaucracy. For a long time Second Life has fought a rather ‘seedy’ and pornographic stereotype. Since most tourist organisations in the real world are funded by governments and are ultimately answerable to you their tax payer, there is an unwillingness to venture into the digital world. These organisations, in my experience, are often driven by older, aged, non technical-friendly men and women who are wary of being associated with anything that may damage their image. Let’s face it; on the whole in the real world, Second Life doesn’t have a good image, largely thanks to the editors of newspapers and producers of news shows.

The other very real issue, especially in today’s world, is the questions of budgets. As I mentioned above these organisations are often funded by the tax payer and as such must be able to attribute some income, or at least return, from a virtual world spend. How exactly can you measure how successful your digital Visit Wherever is? Well surely that’s similar to the attribution of how successful an advertising campaign is? Surely Second Life is advertising. With this advertising thought in mind I conducted some research using Real Life media and an example of a Tourist Region pertaining to Scotland.

Obviously it does go without saying that an island in Second Life won’t get 80,000 visitors per day, but it’s also obvious to say that not all of the 34,000 people who saw the tv ad daily actually watched it and were not making a cup of coffee. Similarly one could argue that the 'advert' of Second Life wasn't sat on someone's lap staring them in the face as it would had it been a newspaper advertisement. However it's also tangible that the Second Life map could be aligned with circulation of a newspaper. There is no accessible way to measure how many people could visit a sim in a day, also with potential login screen advertising the message could be placed in-front of everyone logging in at that given time.

On the surface of these indicated figures it certainly seems that Second Life is an attractive advertising entity however we've all seen corporate companies come and go again, there must be a reason for this. Virtual Worlds however, do have distinct advantages over the older forms of advertising media, namely the ability to create replicas for tourist attractions and even accommodation establishments. As technology advances more tourists will plan holidays not only on a flashy website but the ability to experience the destination in a 3D format even before any plane tickets are bought.

So if and/or when will the Tourist organisations around the world see the potential of Second Life as a genuine global advertising platform for their destinations and if so, will they stay in the long term?